To stick with the ‘Top 5’ theme, today I am going to share the Top 5 Things I’ve Learned in 10 Years as a Strength & Conditioning Coach, none of which have anything to do with weights or specific exercises.

And yes, I’m getting old.

1️⃣Relationships > Everything Else – no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Athletes don’t buy into coaching, they buy into coaches and the best results will come after you have built a relationship with an athlete. People first, athlete second.
2️⃣DO NO HARM – we as coaches, can’t sacrifice the health of an athlete for the sake of performance. Our goal as strength coaches should be to find the exercise(s) that yield the highest possible result with the lowest possible cost, and what we do as strength coaches matter very little if it doesn’t help in keeping athletes healthy. It’s been said before, but the best ability an athlete can have is availability. Teams don’t win with injured athletes and athletes don’t succeed watching from the stands.
3️⃣KISS Principle – most training programs are too complicated – keep training simple. Work to get great sprinting, jumping and throwing med balls in various planes to develop usable power. Think movements not muscles when it comes to strength work. Push things, pull things, squat (for us primarily on 1-leg), bridge, hinge, carry things and perform anti-extension/rotation/lateral-flexion core work. And above all else, if something hurts, don’t do it.
4️⃣Consistency – model consistency in everything you do. As a coach you need to be the same person every single day so athletes know what to expect from you. Being consistent is one of the most important qualities a coach can possess.
5️⃣Constant Learning – you don’t know what you don’t know, but the one thing I do know is that I don’t know everything and never will. There are so many tremendous coaches pushing the field forward and progressing the field to learn from. Don’t be too busy to get better.